The Milano Has Landed!

Alright all four of you followers of my blog….  semi big news…

R’S MOM INVITED ME TO INDIA.

Here’s how it went:

Me, jokingly: Auntie, it’s too cold here, will you take me to India with you?

R’s Mom, nodding & serious: Oh sure you can come, you can come in March for our big family wedding.

WTF?!??!!  R and I played it cool in the moment but shared how shocked we both were later.  Frankly, it was kind of awesome that she extended the offer…

So things are moving along slow and steady.  I’m not sure I’d want to live next door to the potential MIL…but who knows, maybe a respectful and cordial relationship is forming between us?!

So every fall in the midwest I kind of exhibit squirrel-like behavior…I kind of hunker down, gather the things I need for the winter and sort of fall off the face of the earth.  It happens every year, I swear, and though you might think it’s a touch of seasonal affect disorder, it’s just how I roll.

Anyhoot, hopefully with some of this hunkering down will come some more writing.  I can no longer tool around at work since…uhhh…I AM the boss…so I will have to be writing from R’s couch (as if you can beat free heat and wireless).

My topics have mainly been intercultral stuff (i.e. my relationship) primarily because that’s what my readers come for these days!  

I didn’t put up my last post at first because well, it felt so grim.  But as CT says, it was honest and what was going on inside me at the time.  Now that I’m back in NK and R land life couldn’t be better!

I’ve come to a few new, more hopeful conclusions recently though.  After a long conversation with my dad I realized a fundamental difference between R’s family and mine.  My parents have always told me it is my individual efforts that will get me somewhere in life, and that life, is everything I make it.  They have always said not to worry about them and it doesn’t even really cross their minds that I might choose their needs over my own.  They have assured me on several occasions they will take care of themselves one way or another and that it’s basically my job to make myself and my own nuclear family happy if I so choose it.  In a nutshell, they accept and even promote that I maximize on all I can do with my life.  It wouldn’t occur to them that this would ever mean they couldn’t or wouldn’t be a part of my life either.  

I think it’s a much different dynamic with Indian families.  This kind of separating of self, this sort of “breaking free” to become one’s own, is viewed as many different things.  It can be viewed and awful and rebellious, blatantly disrespectful, irreverent, downright foolish and exasperating.  But above all, what I think many caring, traditional Indian families feel when one “breaks free” from the group is a deep sadness.  

Indian families aren’t the only ones who have this sort of “stay close to your group…stay close to us” mentality.  I think a lot of American families do, too.  I dated a guy who was American and more “traditional” than R.  The guy couldn’t even entertain the notion that his parents weren’t perfect.  In fact, he saw no need to create anything different in his own life than what he saw modeled.  I believe parents can be great models, but I also believe there is a crucial time in everyone’s life when they do realize their parents aren’t perfect, their siblings aren’t perfect, and that they will never find the perfect spouse, either.  It’s a hard learning curve, but I think it’s one we all have to explore as we come of age…

Even in private conversations with R, he feels I am sometimes too judgmental of his parents.  In all honesty, I don’t mean to “bash” anyone, and even though I try to couch things in the best terms possible, I sometimes come across as defiant and irreverent.  Well, that’s probably in part true because I AM and I have always questioned everything…parents, teachers, and myself my whole life.  I’m realizing that I too have boundaries and to R, I must be respectful of the people he loves.

While we’ve had a few spats about me being irreverent, I think R is noticing some different things about his family that perhaps he didn’t see before, too.  I don’t think it’s always easy to hear a kind of outsiders perspective on your family, but sometimes it can be good too, I think (I’d love to hear ANY and ALL tips on how to therapize my family!!).  

At any rate, I can sense R’s parent’s aren’t really sure what he’s doing…bringing me over…not having made any major commitment to me and such.  And I think they feel probably feel a little sad that the arranged marriages they tried to set him up with didn’t make him happy, and that in many ways, he had to “leave the nest” to find someone that made him happy.  For more independent, individualist families like mine, this is not a source of sadness…but to a family and culture that derives great power from being an inseparable unit, these notions can be difficult to deal with.   

So I have been trying to have some compassion for how it might feel to place all my stock in and derive all my power from my family or my children.  I try to think about not having vocational skills, a diverse and influential network of friends, and the freedom of knowing I will be OK on my own no matter what.

I know R and I are going to continue to grow together and I do have solid sense that R is going to support me and eventually learn that we have to put one another first–for better or worse.  And I also know that with that, he probably won’t be the son his parents dreamed he would be.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully intend to treat his parents well, make sure they are taken care of, and encourage them to fill a distinct and special grandparent role, but I don’t think it will ever match up to what they had in mind for R and his family.  So, this is the kind of thing I’m learning I will have to be OK with…and hopefully, he will too.

Hello to a few of my faithful readers… I have to check in today and say how happy, proud and amazed I am with our country right now.  I was actually in Grant Park last night and what a celebration!

Also, I did write a post last week, put it up for a few hours and then deleted it.  I’ve decided to post it again and leave it with the disclaimer: the situation is no where as bleak as I made it sound last week. 

At any rate, those were my feelings at the time and as feelings work a new wave has caught me this week .  For a happier update, I will post hopefully again in a week or so…

Hi—I know I’ve sort of dropped off the planet in the blogosphere, but I’m around…always lurking!

There has been so much going on – new job, new neighborhood, new things in my relationship J.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen anything on Gorigirl.com in a while.  I hope we can touch base via that site again.  I have not seen that much stimulating conversation recently on intercultural relationships…

I’m guessing the faithful few of you who read this blog are curious about how my intercultural relationship is going so I thought I’d update.

I hung out with R’s family again last weekend.  I still had a lot going on but R was set to go yet it made me feel sad to opt out of the visit.  I figure I need to take advantage of chances to forge a workable relationship with them—especially since his mom is going to India the first part of December.

The visit was definitely more comfortable than the first.  His mom made a few attempts to talk to me and used my name which was nice.  I knew what to expect this time: lots of play time with the kids and besides that, not too many fireworks.  The bottom line is that I think his family has an overall good impression of me and I’ve exceeded many of their expectations.

I still worry like a crazy woman though.  I’m still trying to figure it all out.  Even though I know I’m doing a “good job” and am pretty much myself (minus of course cracking open a beer and discussion of too many “American” things)…I have mixed feelings of discomfort and uncertainty. 

Remember my issue at the Indian wedding?  R disappearing for lengths of time?  Well he does the same thing whether that’s physically or mentally when he’s with his family.  His mom has him running around doing chores for her, driving her around to stores, and even in the few moments he is actually sitting a few feet away from me it’s like we’re total strangers.

When he is with my family he feels like my boyfriend to me.  I can put my arms around him and give him a nice hug.  My parents ask what “our” plans are together and when we play with my niece and nephew we can laugh out loud about the same things.  I feel like we can be engaged with each other here and there and interact with my family, too.  It’s not the same around his family.  It almost just feels like I’m there hanging out and occasionally babysitting for an Indian family.  It feels like when I’m there, his family has total priority and ownership over him.  They can tell him what to do, where to go, and when.  I don’t think they purposely do it to disrespect me either.  I think it’s just kind of how traditional Indian culture can be: don’t distinguish yourself too much from the group, avoid extremes in emotion, lose your personal desires and just go with the collective flow (which, ironically, is often dictated by The Matriarch J).   

And that’s not what I thought I was signing up for.

I don’t know what the future will hold—and R says he doesn’t know either.  I told him how I feel alienated from him when I’m around the Indians.  I told him he needs to “be more present” for me when we are around his family.  I asked him to ask his mom if she could wait with some of her requests if we are hanging out, with the kids, or kind of having fun.  I told R I would volunteer to help his mom with the chores as well.

Even though I outlined these things to him I feel like I don’t know if I will ever feel comfortable around his family.   I wonder if I will always feel like the outsider and alienated because he is so close with them and it is truly a culture I don’t identify with.  I wonder if we are going to be able to forge our lives together without a lot of heartache on either side.

I guess, as my dad says, you just keep plugging along…